


when you grow up, your heart dies

by yuletide_archivist



Category: My So-Called Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-16
Updated: 2003-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rayanne Graff doesn't understand the world, and doesn't care to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when you grow up, your heart dies

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Beth C.

 

 

Rayanne Graff didn't know a lot of things for sure. It was because she didn't understand the world. Oh, she knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and she knew that her mother was never home on Friday nights. She knew that she was never going to make anything of her life, that her dad was never coming back, that Rickie would always be there for her--until he wasn't--and she knew that Angela Chase was the coolest person alive. Cooler even than Tino. Especially since she didn't realize it. 

And Angela didn't realize it because, like. Nobody ever realized anything. The world was a terrible place, but nobody realized it. Everyone died, like, all the time, but somehow everyone else went around living their lives and just didn't pay attention. Like. Ever. And even though that is pretty upsetting to think about, Rayanne isn't sure she actually cares. 

She may or may not care more after vodka and rum, but she can't remember, and doesn't care enough to try. 

It's like. If you care about one thing you have to care about everything else. So maybe she understands why no one would want to care about anything--because it's like a downward spiral. Caring about one thing sucks you in and makes you care about everything else. Caring about Rickie made Rayanne care about Angela and caring about Angela made Rayanne care about Sharon, and the whole thing made Rayanne sick. 

It wasn't like caring meant anything. It didn't change anything. It didn't bring back fathers or erase sixteen years of being underestimated or cross off your name under "Most Slut Potential". Caring didn't give you money or time or enough brains to get by in school without having to concentrate. Caring never helped anyone. 

Angela cared about everything. She cared about lip gloss and shoes and the color of her hair and people. She cared about not eating all of her mom's cheese and not hurting anyone's feelings. She cared about kissing and about things that could be important if anyone let them. She had wide, trusting eyes, and believed that if everyone could just be nice to each other, the world would be a better place. 

She believed that her life would change if she dyed her hair Crimson Glow. She really cared about dying her hair. She cared about hurting her mother and she cared about getting Jordan's attention and she cared about making sure Rayanne stayed sober and she cared about helping Rickie. 

Rayanne wanted to suck all the caring right out of Angela. When they first met at the beginning of sophomore year, Rayanne had known who Angela was, and Angela had known who Rayanne was, and it had been, like, forever, and she still couldn't decide if she wanted to be Angela Chase, fuck Angela Chase, or destroy Angela Chase. 

She was leaning toward destroy, but fuck was a close second. She was kind of in the same position as Jordan Catalano, he of the sensitive music and leaning. Against stuff. Rayanne didn't get what everyone saw in Jordan. Once he'd borrowed her eyeliner, and he knew better than to take her seriously, but that didn't give him, like, any magical powers. But he understood what Rayanne understood, which was that caring was just too much work. There was other stuff to do. 

Angela cared about whether or not Jordan paid the right amount of attention to her, and how many times he'd had sex, and whether or not he wanted to have sex with her to have sex with her, or to just have sex. Angela cared about stupid things and thought they were important because she thought details were important. She thought the big picture was overrated and she thought that if you could see the details and care about the details, the rest would. The rest would. Like. All fall into place. Like. If you touched a sweater and it was soft and fuzzy, then it didn't matter what the cut or style was, or that it was from Penny's, or that it would look better on an elephant. Because it was soft and fuzzy and that was the detail and that was what mattered. It didn't make sense, but it made Angela. Deep. And shallow. 

Rayanne was pretty sure that was why Jordan wanted Angela--so she could do all that for him. Jordan wanted to consume Angela, to suck her inside himself so that nobody would have to see that she was there. Like if Jordan could hide Angela, he could hide all his contradictions, and everything that made people look at him funny. And then he could be himself and be her and all the parts of him that were like the parts of her wouldn't need to exist, because she existed. 

Rayanne was also pretty sure she wasn't like that. Or, at least, that she didn't want Angela because of all that. She had Rickie for that. Rickie cared about everything. He was easily bruised just by Rayanne's bad moods. He had a crush on Jordan. Once he'd even had a crush on Brian Krakow--for, like, five seconds. If it had lasted any longer than that, Rayanne would have had to find a new friend. If Rickie was a girl, he'd be Angela. They were, like, separated at birth. They both thought they understood the pain of the world when really they didn't even understand themselves. 

They didn't understand anything. 

Rayanne understood. She understood that life was pain and life was suffering and it was every man, woman, and teenage alcoholic for themselves. And whatever you had to drink or consume, whoever you had to fuck or destroy, it was, like, an imperative to do it, because otherwise the world ate you. And either way, in the end, you were alone. Because even understanding that you'd never understand didn't fix the problems or shut off your head or make it okay that you'd ate all of Angela's mom's cheese. 

Angela once told Rayanne and Rickie that she thought school was like a battlefield for your heart. Rickie had sighed and leaned his head against Angela's shoulder and said, "That's so pretty. You're like a poet." Rayanne had said, "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard," and pushed off the wall and went to find Tino. 

Because, like, didn't Angela know that she was so behind the times? Pat Benetar already said that love was the battlefield, and it was like--like--how could that make sense? Battlefields were where the battles were fought, not what the battles were. The battlefield was unimportant--it could be the hallway or the bathroom or the parking lot of Let's Bolt or Angela's mom's bedroom. Maybe what Angela had meant to say was that school was the war, the enemy your heart was fighting against, and the building was the battlefield. 

Angela was imprecise. 

That could be flaw number one. But how many flaws did Angela have? Almost none. 

She was imprecise and she cared too much and she never noticed anything that didn't have to do with Jordan Catalano, and even when she noticed had to do with Jordan Catalano, it was never the truth. Angela was like Vic, with his stupid toothpicks and his lit rag obsession, always talking about the different truths. There was only one truth. 

The truth was that the heart is the battlefield and love is the war and everything else is just filler to, like, mark off days until eventually it's all destroyed and consumed. And you don't get to start over, to just drive away like Vic did, like her dad did, like everyone always did--you have to stick around and learn how to be sober and watch everyone grow up without realizing that they're empty inside. 

 


End file.
